What drives you crazy in Bitwig?

[stamp]

Hi all,
I'm creating this post so I can link it to devs later on.
I'm asking you to tell us about the little things that drive you crazy in everyday usage, and possible solutions. Let's avoid things that are missing, we have enough 'what's missing' posts allready.

An examples:
- Eq+ plus will create a node every time you single click on the curve, so every time I miss the node I want to move it creates another node. It happens maybe 10-20 times a day
Solution: change from single click to double for node creation.

Ps: please refrain from commenting other's post to avoid clutter, thanks!

[mholloway]

When recording a new clip into the Clip Launcher, the resulting clip will almost always be 1 bar longer than I intended.
Apparently the pause between finishing playing and hitting stop gets rounded UP to the next bar length. So I play 8 bars of performance, and then bitwig says "8 bars and then a beat or so = 9 bars". I have to manually change the clips back to the intended length almost every single time, and it's incredibly annoying.

Live is much smarter about this: it knows to round Up OR Down to the nearest bar, whichever is the closest (which is pretty much always the direction you want). It always rounds the way I expect, I've never had any issues with it. You never have to go back after recording and fix the length of the clip.

[backtomusic]

- Eq+ plus will create a node every time you single click on the curve, so every time I miss the node I want to move it creates another node. It happens maybe 10-20 times a day
Solution: change from single click to double for node creation.

Fabfilter Pro-Q works the same, though you get a preview dot soo you have visual feedback that your about to create a new node.

Now I have never missed in Eq+ or Pro-Q, are you using mouse acceleration (it should be on per default in Windows, dont know about others)? Mouse acceleration basically mean your f***ed learning a muscle memory to get precise movement since precision is dependent on movement speed.

I don't mind double click anyways though,

[pdxindy]

When recording a new clip into the Clip Launcher, the resulting clip will almost always be 1 bar longer than I intended.
Apparently the pause between finishing playing and hitting stop gets rounded UP to the next bar length. So I play 8 bars of performance, and then bitwig says "8 bars and then a beat or so = 9 bars". I have to manually change the clips back to the intended length almost every single time, and it's incredibly annoying.

Live is much smarter about this: it knows to round Up OR Down to the nearest bar, whichever is the closest (which is pretty much always the direction you want). It always rounds the way I expect, I've never had any issues with it. You never have to go back after recording and fix the length of the clip.

Yup, that is a frustrating one...

and if you stop the clip slightly before 8 bars so it rounds up to 8, then any notes that you want to go to the end of the clip get cut early.

[billcarroll]

1. You have to be almost too precise when selecting a handle on the edge of a clip.
2. Also, the pen tool looks a little too blunt. A little more precision for all pointer tools would be nice.
3. When creating new automation, the line showing current value of the parameter before creating an automation point is almost invisible.
4. You can't tell on the arrange which track header is selected. No visual indicator.
5. Automation on group tracks is a not consistent with regular tracks. It's hard to get the automation edit panel to show for group tracks.

[machinesworking]

Keyboard shortcuts are panel dependent and have a light grey line around them to let you know which one is active, but if you open the Inspector/information panel, that will become active, and there is no indicator line. Shortcuts are also panel specific, but not capable of being reassigned to more than one function, so for instance the key command for toggling track/clip height in the arrange/main panel cannot be assigned to toggling Clip height in the Mixer panel. These two things would make sense, just not together, it's the worst of both worlds and the only thing that makes the shortcuts somewhat annoying. Beyond that they're right up there with DP10, with the instant search and run feature, which is a fantastic learning tool as well as tool for shortcuts you rarely use.

[antic604]

Some big & small things that can drive me crazy on a bad day (in no particular order)

• it's very difficult to grab the fade in/out handle since clip gain was added (it should extend a bit more down)
• I don't get what's the point of Show Master/Group Track Content toggle for Group tracks - it should automatically adjust depending on whether there's a clip on Group track or not; or better yet mix both views
• there's no righ-click -> "Bounce" when on track's header; instead you need to select range and Bounce that, even if you want whole track bounced
• there's no "Reverse" under right-click
• most keyboard shortcuts displayed in menus are baked-in, i.e. don't adjust to custom mappings
• when dragging right edge of the clip, there's no way to disable looping (like there is to force looping using the lower corner, as opposed to upper corner that's clip's loop button dependent)
• keyboard shortcuts are tied to specific panels, but same key can't be assigned to same or different actions on different panels
• shortcut for "Automation Follows Clips" works when either Arranger area or Track Headers are in focus, whereas "Follow Playback" only works in case of the latter
• selecting multiple tracks, multiple clips or time selection across many tracks has no impact on what's seen in multi-track editor; you have to re-do all the selections again; Live works so much better here, surprisingly
• you can rename anything with Alt+click on respective text box, except for Arranger clips (although works for Launcher clips, surprisingly)
• when Launcher clip is playing, Arranger clips on the same track are distinctly grayed out; but that's not the case in reverse situation
• when you're in Normal Track View and see all tracks in your project filling out the screen, selecting tracks/time in the lower half and clicking "Use Large Track Height" shows only top half of tracks, despite your selection is in the lower half is still active

[Dionysos]

The overlapping Shift keyboard modifier for "Add to selection" and "disable snap" is really unfortunate. If you want to resize a note or clip while ignoring the grid, you can't press Shift before clicking and dragging the edge of the item, as otherwise the operation will also be performed on whatever item(s) you had selected before, even if these other items are off screen. While it has more or less entered my muscle memory by now, it still feels clunky and I hope the devs put in some logic that separates both actions more from each other.

[Tj Shredder]

For me its the missing vertical zoom or logarithmic waveform (I would prefer the latter...)
What I miss a lot is encapsulation in the Grid and a Midi Grid. As well as a formula device... To create the most easy formulas I need tons of real estate in the Grid for no good reason...
I miss a way to define a default setting for new tracks. I always have to set Midi channel to same, switch off auto arm etc...
I would also tell Bitwig in advance in the plugin settings window if an instrument plugin is MPE compatible...

[minortom]

* The way copy-drag works only when pressing Alt after clicking but not before is maddening (rechecked it in 3.3.3 and now it works regardless of the order of clicking and pressing Alt/Option, must have been post traumatic muscle memory)
* Undo does not apply to plugins
* No plugin window management. Even a single key to toggle all plugin windows would be heavenly.
* No key combo nor API call to fold/unfold track groups
* Presets: once it's loaded you cannot tell which preset it was (with few exceptions where authors bothered to rename a container device)
* No input gains almost anywhere. Having both input and output gains on FX Layers would simplify a certain set of audio routings

[pdxindy]

The OP asked to avoid things that are missing.... now the posts are getting into the 500th thread about feature requests!

[jonljacobi]

1. The extreme difficulty mass entering stretch markers. Deal killer.
2. The extremely finicky zoom/scroll ratio and having to press ctrl to actually scroll the scroll bar.
3. Mousing to context commands at the top of the window rather in right-click context menus.
4. The inability to move backwards using key commands more than the previous marker when playing.
5. The disparity in the size of fonts and elements between the play and other menus.
6. The inability to scrub using the beat counter when playing.
7. Seeing version after version come out without addressing these issues.

[antic604]

* The way copy-drag works only when pressing Alt after clicking but not before is maddening

God, no!

It's great that - when dragging a clip or other data - I can decide half-way through the action whether I want to move or duplicate it, in particular that I can change my mind that I don't want to duplicate but rather move (let go of the key).

The whole idea of modifier keys is they MODIFY the action you're doing:
- if you hit the modifier while already dragging something, it changes the end result of dragging
- if you hit the modifier before clicking something, it should change the result of clicking, for example temporarily swap the pointer tool to a razor, or mute, or scrub, etc. whatever's available in given software and specified by the user

[machinesworking]

* The way copy-drag works only when pressing Alt after clicking but not before is maddening

God, no!

It's great that - when dragging a clip or other data - I can decide half-way through the action whether I want to move or duplicate it, in particular that I can change my mind that I don't want to duplicate but rather move (let go of the key).

The whole idea of modifier keys is they MODIFY the action you're doing:
- if you hit the modifier while already dragging something, it changes the end result of dragging
- if you hit the modifier before clicking something, it should change the result of clicking, for example temporarily swap the pointer tool to a razor, or mute, or scrub, etc. whatever's available in given software and specified by the user

This has got to be a Windows thing. Here in Mac OS Alt/Option drag copies whether you select it before or after you start dragging. The only difference is it shows a plus sign if you do it after. In both cases you can let go of the Alt key before you settle and it will not copy it.

[antic604]

This has got to be a Windows thing. Here in Mac OS Alt/Option drag copies whether you select it before or after you start dragging. The only difference is it shows a plus sign if you do it after. In both cases you can let go of the Alt key before you settle and it will not copy it.

Oh, I thought the complaint was coming from macOS user actually, because on Windows adding Alt when dragging a clip bounces it in place on the fly* and when you put it somewhere it's already an audio clip. You add Ctrl while dragging to duplicate, I believe.

* BTW that was the excuse I heard from Support when asked about why Alt + click on clip's header won't let me rename it like everywhere else does. I thought no one would be confused about difference betwee adding Alt before or after clicking, but apparently I'm wrong